I propose that if Macbeth had not heard the witches’ prophecies in the beginning of the play he would not have killed Duncan, and most likely would have been fine with the position as the new Thane of Cawdor. However, Macbeth allows the prophecies’ to completely control the direction his life takes.
I am a psychology major so naturally I am biased to this point of view… but I think that Macbeth’s fate was mainly a product of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Although some of the witches apparitions that come true are purely supernatural such as their warnings that Macbeth would be safe until Birnam Wood moved to Dunsane Hill and that he would not be harmed by none of woman born( and all the other prophecies in that scene.) I believe that Macbeths killing of Duncan Banquoe and Macduff’s wife and children are the result of Macbeths allowance of the witches prophecies (that he would become king and that Banquo’s children would eventually gain the throne) to completely manifest themselves as absolute reality in his mind and his inability to realize that he still had the power to choose his actions. Macbeth’s actions can be paralleled with the ideas in the Thomas Theorem the root principal in self fulfilling prophecy explains that: “people do not react only to the situations they are in, but also, and often primarily, to the way they perceive the situations and to the meaning they assign to these situations. Therefore, their behavior is determined in part by their perception and the meaning they ascribe to the situations they are in, rather than by the situations themselves. Once people convince themselves that a situation really has a certain meaning, regardless of whether it actually does, they will take very real actions in consequence.” (Wikipedia) Similarly, it doesn’t matter whether or not the witches prophecies in the beginning of the play were true or if the witches had just turned out to be three crazy homeless ladies speaking in tongues that were only in the play for that one scene…Macbeth would have fundamentally carried out the same actions.
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You can see that Macbeth would not have killed Duncan in the play if it weren’t for the witches in the beginning in the film as well. The witches seduce him and make him greedy for power. In the film the witches seduce him Macbeth into having sex with them. By doing this he is envious for power. In order to get this power he needs to have masculinity for himself. We heard in lecture today about how masculinity is a theme in the play. All these men are greedy for power and in order to get this power they must kill. Because these witches are involved I don’t think that Macbeth would have had the urge to kill. These witches gave off lust and greed to Macbeth and it will not benefit him in the long run.
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